Table 2. Tests of association between the animal ethics dimensions and opinions about the human use of animals (N = 448).

	Animal rights	Anthropo-centric	Animal protection	Lay utili-tarian
On principle, I do not visit zoos, because animals are kept with the sole purpose of public exhibitionA	0.024***	n.s.	n.s.	n.s.
It is completely fine to keep animals in zoos as long as they as they thrive in captivity A	n.s.	0.016*	0.028***	n.s.
It is completely acceptable to show trained wild animals in circusesA	n.s.	0.027***	n.s.	n.s.
There is no reason to punish people who have sexual intercourse with animals as long as the animal is not exposed to pain or other discomforts A	n.s.	n.s.	n.s.	0.023***
Dilemma about homeless cats: “Put down the homeless cats where a new home is not quickly found, so that important resources can be used elsewhere (reference: other responses to the dilemma”)B,C	-0.011*	n.s.	n.s.	0.012*
There should be no limits to the use of animals in medical researchA	n.s.	0.022***	n.s.	0.028***

* p<0.05

** p<0.01

*** p<0.001; n.s: not significant at the 0.05 level

^A Results are from ordinal logit regression models (1 =“disagree; 2 =“neither agree/disagree”; 3 = agree”) where the following control variables are included: subpopulation (divided into meat avoiders, ordinary Danes, and respondents employed in the meat production sector), age, gender, education, and living area (regions of Denmark).

^B Introductory text to the dilemma: Many resources are used in taking care of homeless cats. It will be impossible or very difficult to find a new home for a large proportion of the cats. What do you think should be done? Other response options offered to respondents were: “I have no opinion about this”, “Let’s be more patient and only put down the cats if it is impossible to assure them proper welfare”, and “other”. They were recoded into the reference value = 0.

^C Results are from logit regression models Control variables were similar to the ones reported in note A.